No Online for Soulcalibur III

Soulcalibur III producer Hiroaki Yotoriyama has confirmed on the Official Project Soul Website that the upcoming PS2 fighter will be devoid of any online play. Answering questions as part of a special ongoing Q&A series known as "New Kimagure Watcher," Yotoriyama was posed a number of inquiries including those regarding the aforementioned online play, the possibility of special guest characters, and why Soulcalibur III is PlayStation 2 exclusive. Listed below are some excerpts from the interview:

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Watcher Tan: And this time we're not going to include any guest characters? And it's not going to be on 5 platforms

Hiroaki Yotoriyama: That's correct. We've decided not to have any guest characters, and it's only going to come out on PlayStation 2. The guest characters and the three different consoles were great and I'm glad that we did it, but it was also pretty tough.

Tan: I know what you mean. The schedule was very tough; we barely got it out in time. The funny thing is, there are no guest characters this time and it's only coming out on one console and it seems like we're on an ever tighter schedule...

Yotoriyama: Well that's because SC3 is going to be loaded with new features.

Tan: Yeah, it's really loaded, isn't it. There's going to be so much in the game I'm going to have a hard time showing it all in the promotional videos.

Yotoriyama: We're all really looking forward to this year's E3.

Tan: But we had a lot of offers for guest characters this time too, why didn't you want to include any guest characters?

Yotoriyama: It's my policy to never do the same thing twice.

Tan: This time around, we're going to come out on the home console first, why's that?

Yotoriyama: What we're making is more suited for home consoles.

Tan: Yeah, the new modes are definitely better suited for playing at home. Here's another question that I think a lot of players are wondering. What about online? Is SC3 going to be online compatible?

Yotoriyama: Well, we're trying to make a product towards a global audience. The online infrastructure is not developed in many regions so the online aspect would be unplayable for many gamers. So we decided to not go online this time, instead concentrating on upgrading the content and characters to provide a game that can be played by everyone.

Tan: Still, online would have been nice. We couldn't make this game online compatible, but this time the game is going to come out in North America and Europe before Japan. And, the new modes should really expand the game.

Yotoriyama: Yes, that is one of our concepts this time.

Tan: Any comments for all the fans waiting for Soulcalibur 3?

Yotoriyama: We currently have over 150 people working on the development of this game. Soulcalibur III is slated to come out this fall, it's going to be full of new features, please look forward to it

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Okay, so it's not the most hard hitting of interviews (it was conducted internally by a make-believe bird creature after all), but at least the inquiry answers the online question that so many people have emailed us about since we first posted our preview story last Thursday. But what else can anxious players expect from Soulcalibur III? It appears that we'll have to wait until E3 this May to find out. Should anything else break in the interim, however, we'll be sure to let you know.

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